carrier (thing)

An individual who does not display the symptoms of a disease, but harbors the pathogen which causes it, or has the gene (or genes) for it, and can transmit the disease to others either through interacting with other individuals, or by passing the disease-causing gene (or genes) to offspring.

A substance which transports things. For instance, carriers are used in pharmaceutical creams to get drugs past the barrier of the skin and into a person's system.

From the BioTech Dictionary at http://biotech.icmb.utexas.edu/. For further information see the BioTech homenode.